


Bad Words

by spacekc929



Series: Dennie's Rules for Wade [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Daddy Kink, Daddy/boy relationship, Derogatory Language, Discipline, FIFA World Cup 2014, Gentleness, Hair Pulling, Honesty, M/M, Name Calling, Power Exchange, Praise Kink, Rough Oral Sex, Setting Boundaries, Setting Limits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25861054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacekc929/pseuds/spacekc929
Summary: Daddy Dom says something he shouldn’t have said. Conversations in the middle of the night, crying, and frank discussions about the boy’s limits follow thereafter.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Dennie's Rules for Wade [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861339
Comments: 5
Kudos: 61





	Bad Words

Wade called his traditional seat at the end of the bar “Dennie’s barstool.” He’d always gravitated to that seat, even as far back as his first visit to Frau Lick over six and a half years ago. This spot allowed Wade to see the entire bar, including all of the booths, the pool table, the stairs to the basement playrooms, and two of the four television screens. He could even see the hallway to the restrooms and the office, which was to his right, out of the corner of his eye. No one could sneak up on him here.

Dennie had been tending the bar the first night Wade shuffled in with eyes glued to the floor, idly tugging at the green band around his right wrist: the picture of an unsure and available submissive. He’d taken one look around the dimly-lit bar, at all of the laughing, joyful faces, and scrambled to that out-of-the-way barstool—it seemed the only safe option. He sat still and quiet, not ordering anything until the tall, gruff-looking bartender with a beard approached him. “Just a club soda,” Wade murmured at the man’s questioning look.

“Sure thing, kid.” They didn’t speak again.

Wade went home that night with Yosef, who’d paid for his drink and asked if Wade wanted to be told what to do. Wade couldn’t believe his luck—a handsome, kind man? Approaching him and seeing all of Wade’s deepest, darkest, untested desires? Of course Wade had said yes.

He saw Yosef for a couple of weeks before Yosef told him it wasn’t working out. Wade understood why, of course; Yosef had wanted, what he termed, “cheerful obedience.” That had meant something to Yosef like, ‘do everything I say with a smile,’ which was hard for Wade in a general sense back then because Wade hadn’t had much to smile about. One of Yosef’s favorite phrases had been, ‘enthusiasm for your Master’s joy is key.’ Wade hadn’t been that enthusiastic about Yosef’s joy, at least not enough to predict what acts of service Yosef thought a good sub would naturally think up, so it was inevitable that Yosef got bored of him.

Wade went back to Frau Lick for the second time and was attracted, again, to the safe-looking barstool at the end of the bar. That same bartender was there, and his beard had grown even longer in the meantime. It was flecked with silvering bristles. He was at the other side of the bar cleaning something up, so Wade waited politely until the man noticed him and strode the distance of the bar in a split second. “How long you been sitting there, kid? You should have yelled out.”

“That’s okay,” Wade said back. “I’m not in a hurry. Can I just get an ice water?” At the bartender’s mildly irritated look, Wade stammered out, “I’ll still give you a tip. It’s just hot outside. Soda makes me more thirsty.”

The bartender perked up at the mention of a tip and poured Wade a glass of ice water in a tall, thin glass. Then he plopped in a lemon wedge and an umbrella, which made the drink look like a fancy cocktail. Wade would never have had the guts to ask for a lemon wedge in his free drink. “You sure you don’t need something stronger, boy?”

“No, thank you. I don’t drink.” Wade hurriedly pushed a $10 bill across the bar.

The bartender pocketed the money and raised his eyebrows, assessing Wade with a perfunctory sort of gaze. “I see. It’s a good habit. Especially in a BDSM bar.”

Wade couldn’t help but blush at the bartender’s easy discussion of what sorts of shenanigans went on in Frau Lick.

“What’s your name, kid? I saw you a few weeks ago, didn’t I?”

“Y-yeah. I’m Wade.”

“Dennie.”

Wade wasn’t certain what this man identified as—Dom, Daddy, sadist, or what—but no matter what Sir was, Wade was not about to call him by his first name, not even in his own head. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

“Back at you. You hit it off with Yosef, if I remember?”

Wade had honestly figured he’d been invisible to the bartender after getting his soda last time. “Oh. Yes. But it didn’t work out with him.” Wade gestured to his green wristband. “Guess I’ll try again.”

“You want my advice?” Sir leaned over the bar like he was about to tell Wade a secret. “This isn’t an exclusive type of club, so there’re some assholes here you need to avoid. Terrence Dickinson, or Terry, for one, comes in a lot—he’s a charmer, but a raging alcoholic. I’d keep away from him if I were you.”

“Oh. Thanks for telling me,” Wade responded in what he hoped was a well-mannered tone.

Sir went back to the other end of the bar to bring other people their drinks, and eventually someone took the stool beside Wade. His name was Ulysses and he had kind, dark eyes and skin the color of peat after a rainstorm. He made Wade feel safe; he put his hand gently on the small of Wade’s back, protecting Wade from the rest of the barroom, and asked Wade about his experience as a submissive and his limits. Wade had stammered, unable to come up with anything, all the while being subjected to Ulysses’ endless patience and compassion. They talked for over an hour, and at one point, Ulysses got up to use the bathroom, which gave Wade a chance to discreetly wave over the bartender.

“Um, sir. Is he… um…”

Sir smiled at him and took Wade’s empty glass. “He’s a good man, Ulysses. I think you’ll have a nice time with him.”

Wade did have a nice time. They did a scene at Ulysses house that night, where Wade was given the gift of sucking Ulysses’ truly magnificent cock with his hands bound behind his back. They’d cuddled face-to-face on the bed after that, Ulysses taking each of Wade’s wrists between his two strong hands and massaging them to take out the minor pain caused by the restraints. Wade thought he may have found his happy-ever-after.

Wade should have been a bit more cautious in his thinking; had he done so, maybe it would have hurt less when Ulysses gently but firmly told him, a month later, that he wasn’t interested in continuing their arrangement. It’s nothing personal, Ulysses had said. I just don’t think we match right from a kink standpoint.

Wade had wanted to scream back, how the fuck is that possible? I’ve done literally everything you’ve asked me to do!

Wade didn’t scream back though. He understood, deep down, that Ulysses wanted what Yosef had wanted: ardor and verve, which apparently good submissives had in spades. Wade didn’t mind being tied up, but he didn’t love it; Ulysses was a Shibari practitioner who’d wanted to send Wade into subspace while under the rope. That hadn’t happened.

Wade kept going back to Frau Lick. For the first year or so, someone new always found him at Dennie’s barstool; when Sir was familiar with them, he’d give Wade the inside scoop on whether Wade should go home with them or not. Wade always complied with Sir’s suggestions.

As the years went on, though, Wade’s reputation started following him like an annoying little brother, so it became incrementally more challenging to find good Doms to scene with. Wade was a difficult submissive, they all said; he was too pliant. Too _easy_. He did whatever he was asked to do; he didn’t set limits or say no. A wet blanket. Wade wanted to please so badly, and he’d tried to get into all of his Doms’ kinks. But he didn’t like being hit; and he didn’t like being restrained; and he didn’t like orgasm control; and he didn’t like serving his Master or cleaning his Master’s home. God, one of his Doms had been something called a ‘handler,’ which meant the man had a horde of boys who cosplayed as puppies and barked and yipped just like real dogs. Wade really hadn’t been able to pull off enthusiasm about pretending to be a dog. Wade wasn’t excited about any of it, but he still did everything he was told, searching for some scrap of dominance and authority to alleviate the aching void inside him. That little voice begging someone, ‘Please keep me,’ even though Wade well understood that he wasn’t worth keeping.

Wade didn’t always follow Mr. Henderson’s advice once the stream of good Doms ran out. He went home with Terry maybe two-and-a-half years after first coming to Frau Lick, and he’d stayed with Terry a while, at least by Wade’s standards: four months of Terry ditching him to go drinking with his buddies; four months of cleaning up broken bottles from Terry’s kitchen after he passed out on his couch; four months of servicing Terry’s tiny, alcohol-soft prick while Terry flogged him. Terry didn’t bring Wade to orgasm even a single time during their liaison; Terry, frankly, didn’t care if Wade was having fun with him or not.

Mr. Henderson had been frustrated with Wade for his choices. When he and Terry were ‘dating,’ Terry would bring Wade to Frau Lick and Wade would sit at his normal barstool while Terry wandered around, joking, laughing it up with his Dom friends, drinking from their pitchers. Sometimes Terry took other subs to the basement for play. From the vantage point of Dennie’s barstool, Wade could see, off to the right out of the corner of his eye, Terry ushering young, cute things into the bathroom. 

“This has to stop,” was what Mr. Henderson said one evening after Terry had abandoned him at the bar to frolic with some other submissive downstairs. Wade felt the crush of Mr. Henderson’s disappointment, and it hurt—Wade wanted to be liked.

“You don’t get it,” Wade mumbled back. “No one else will have me.”

“Then you should be alone,” Mr. Henderson shot back without much mercy. “That man isn’t fit to be a Dom, and he doesn’t treat you right.”

“I’ve gone through all the fit Doms by this point,” Wade tried to joke. But Mr. Henderson didn’t laugh.

Mr. Henderson had a boy of his own during the Terry era—a sprightly black man named Harrison-but-call-me-Harry who was an expert graphic designer. Harry hung out with “The Kids”—a loosely-knit group of submissives from Frau Lick who supported and looked out for each other. Wade had joined The Kids’ Facebook group, and he’d tried to hang out with them in person. But they were hard for Wade to connect with. They were all like Harry: they were outgoing with a zest for submission that Wade couldn’t empathize with. He didn’t have any stories about subspace to share with them and he didn’t much care to listen to them discuss their successful kinky liaisons, since success had so eluded Wade thus far. And then when it came to chitchat about non-BDSM topics—like the news, or the weather, or what Podcasts everyone was listening to—Wade floundered as much as he did when trying to make small talk with regular strangers. It was easier just not to engage; to wait quietly and patiently on Dennie’s barstool for someone to notice he existed.

On that particular night, Harry and several of the other Kids were all sitting at one of the larger tables on the other end of the room. The group was cheerful and loud; they all wore red wristbands, even the unattached ones, because they were there to ‘have fun’ not ‘get Topped.’ (Celebrating an impending marriage, Wade thought he’d heard.) Wade saw Mr. Henderson periodically look over at the group—at _Harry_ —with a certain soft, gentle fondness. It stirred something in Wade: envy? Longing? Why wouldn’t Terry look at Wade like that? Why had none of Wade’s Doms ever looked at him like that?

Harry bounded over at some point to flirt shamelessly with Mr. Henderson, which drew Mr. Henderson away from Wade and to the other end of the bar. The two of them weren’t near enough for Wade to tell what they were saying. Harry was grinning in a playful way, leaning over the bar with his knees on the barstool and his butt on display for the entire room, twirling Mr. Henderson’s beard with a finger. Mr. Henderson tapped Harry’s butt to make him sit back down. It was a dominant gesture, but Mr. Henderson’s eyes were sparkling with _fun_.

Wade turned back to his juice, twirling his straw with agitation, but he looked back up when he felt someone’s eyes on him. It was Harry. Wade waved halfheartedly; Harry waved back, but he was grimacing, like maybe he wished they hadn’t made eye contact.

Then Harry pulled Mr. Henderson across the bar to whisper something in his ear. Wade didn’t hear what Harry said, but he’d seen this particular word on enough people’s lips by this point that it wasn’t hard to make it out.

_Slut._

It wasn’t an unfamiliar epithet; it wasn’t even surprising. Everyone was thinking it—Wade had probably fucked more of the Doms at Frau Lick than the next two subs, combined. And it was why no one looked at Wade like Mr. Henderson looked at Harry. Wade slipped off Dennie’s barstool and went home alone.

* * *

“God! That boy was a nightmare,” Dennie chuckled. It was Sunday afternoon and Frau Lick was filling fast with people in U.S. soccer jerseys—all of the kinky folks were also all of the soccer folks, so every four years Frau Lick became a World Cup viewing party venue. Despite the growing crowd, Dennie still set out a little paper triangle on Wade’s regular barstool that read, ‘ _reserved for Dennie’s Wade_.’ (He’d wanted to scrawl ‘ _reserved for Dennie’s boy_ ,’ but they still weren’t there yet.) No one ever fucked with that sign.

“He was cute,” Maggie countered, sloshing back a draught of IPA and laughing. She spilled a little bit on the ‘8’ on the front of her jersey, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Sure, and he was rude. Not to mention intractably disobedient. A total brat.”

“Some people like brats.”

“I know Delilah does,” Dennie rejoined dryly. Maggie at least had the grace to blush at that. “Aren’t you supposed to be like, doing data entry or something right now? Not taking up space at my crowded bar and bothering me about my old flings?”

“I’m just saying that Harry’s invited me to his and Jasper’s wedding.”

“Good for you. He hasn’t invited me, and I wouldn’t go even if he had. I barely even know him; we were only together a couple months.”

“I just thought you might be interested in the gossip.” Maggie sighed in a long-suffering way that did not rouse a bit of Dennie’s sympathy. Dennie remembered Harry. He’d tried to be Harry’s Daddy for a while, but ultimately Harry hadn’t really been looking for a Daddy like Dennie. Harry was the kind of boy who liked play punishment—he wanted to brat hard, get spanked hard, and then wake up the next day and brat just as hard as he’d bratted the day before. It wasn’t like that was a bad thing, but it just didn’t really mesh with Dennie’s brand of dominance—or rather, with Dennie’s brand of ‘Nazism,’ as Harry had been prone to whine.

(Wade was a far better match for Dennie’s style. For one, he actually felt bad when he broke Rules. And Wade, thankfully, didn’t need to be told that it was rude to insult people in public places.)

Before Dennie could come up with a suitable way to shut Maggie up, he heard a few distinct ‘boos’ from the booths near the entryway. Wade stumbled inside, clutching his messenger bag to his chest as he passed through a veritable gauntlet of U.S. Soccer fans. He was breathing a bit heavily by the time he’d made it to his barstool. He placed his seat placard politely on the bar in front of him like he always did; Dennie never put it away because he’d noticed that Wade periodically liked to look at it.

“That’s an ugly shirt,” Maggie commented with a sneer.

“I—I’m half-Portuguese!” Wade protested. He blushed almost as dark as his Nani jersey.

Dennie leaned over the bar to brush Wade’s curly, slightly sweaty black hair from his face. “You biked, sweetheart?”

“Yeah.” Wade smiled in that modest way of his; his lips asking, feebly, ‘are we allowed to point in this direction?’

“Well, I think your jersey is gorgeous, but only because you’re wearing it. Can’t say I’m rooting for Portugal tonight either.”

Maggie retched ostentatiously. “Stop with the romance already. It’s painful. Especially when you look like that.”

“S-sorry.”

Dennie rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to her, my little Nani. She’s being all competitive for no clear reason given that last week she was so ignorant about soccer that she didn’t even know who Clint Dempsey was. I bet you bought that jersey half-off at Wal-Mart, didn’t you Maggie?”

“Hey! I resent that!”

“Did I or did I not spend last Monday teaching you the rules of soccer for the first time in your life? Is it not true that I had to explain to you what ‘offsides’ meant using drink coasters to diagram it?”

“I don’t recall.”

Wade giggled a bit at that, covering his mouth with his hand. Dennie admired the red wristband slung around his slender, tawny wrist. “I’ll root for America if Portugal doesn’t make it through,” Wade promised solemnly to mollify Maggie.

“I’ll even make sure he has a Wal-Mart Dempsey jersey,” Dennie added. Maggie made some indignant noises, but it was worth it to earn Wade’s grin. He smiled so much more these days than he used to; Dennie didn’t mind a bit taking credit for it.

Dennie didn’t get any more time to talk as he and the other bartender, Greg, quickly became busy—Frau Lick normally didn’t need two bartenders at once, but tonight was, quite frankly, bonkers. (Dennie almost hoped the U.S. didn’t make it to the Round of Sixteen; the crowd at that point would probably end up breaking fire regulations.) Once Maggie finished her drink, she even stepped in as a temporary waitress to circle the room and take drink orders.

Of course, when Portugal scored within the first five minutes, the entire bar went up in boos. Wade, though, curled his fist and pumped it just a bit in front of his chest. That was Wade, Dennie thought: he never got over-the-top excited about anything, but when you looked more closely, you could discern his enthusiasm. It was subdued, perhaps, but it was there.

Despite the promising start, the United States tied it up then took the lead. A U.S. win would have clinched America a berth in the Round of Sixteen and definitively knocked Portugal out of the running. But at the very end of stoppage time, Portugal scored an equalizer. Wade was relieved, but the atmosphere in the rest of the bar became understandably sour. Dennie kept an eye on Wade as the American fans grumbled and called for more alcohol to drown their annoyance—just in case some drunk thought to pick a fight with the non-threatening guy in a Portugal jersey—but none of them noticed Wade sitting demurely and out of the way at the end of the bar.

(Just how it should be.)

When the chaos eventually died down and the crowd had thinned out, Dennie leaned over the bar to stroke Wade’s cheek. Wade was still a little flushed from the end-of-the-game excitement; his diffident version of happiness, which he kept secreted away from everyone but Dennie, never failed to give Dennie tender feelings. “I came in early so I get to leave a bit early. 1:00am. Would you like me to come over?”

“If you want,” Wade murmured back. But Dennie could see that his heart had jumped with interest at Dennie’s suggestion. Even now, after almost six months of being in a relationship, Wade was often nervous to vocalize his own wants, and even more nervous about ‘imposing’ or ‘intruding’ on Dennie’s private time, frequently covering up his desires with the familiar qualifier, ‘whatever you’d like, Dennie.’ Maybe they needed a new Rule…

“I do want. But you’re the one who has to get up at 7:30, not me. Tell me what _you_ want.”

Direct orders usually helped break through the morass, but Dennie could see the gears were still turning furiously Wade’s mind. Was this a trick question? Was he supposed to say ‘no’ because Dennie didn’t really want to come over and was just being polite? Would Dennie be mad about being woken up early?

“Wade. Rule #3.”

The curt reminder cut to the core and relief flooded Wade’s expression, enabling Wade to say, with some confidence, “Yes, please, I want you to come over tonight.” And even now, after being together for months, Dennie still got a high from that: from the fact that _he_ —Dennis Henderson, the strict Daddy who expected total obedience—was capable of making Wade feel secure and courageous just by giving him an order.

So Dennie did come. Twice, actually—first in Wade’s ass, then, after they’d cleaned up and were supposed to be getting ready for bed, again in Wade’s mouth. Something about the excitement of the match had made them both lively despite the late hour; something stoked a spark in Wade’s spirit, embedded a playful gleam in his eye as he dropped to his knees right there in the shower and, without asking, took Dennie in his mouth. Usually Wade was so unassuming; timid, almost, to show Dennie how much he liked his cock. (As if he thought there was some realistic possibility that Dennie might say ‘no’ to a blowjob.) Dennie would challenge anyone to resist a bobbing head of curly hair who, with a bulging cheek, looked up at Dennie like he hung the stars.

(No, actually, Dennie would never let anyone else see Wade this way, ever again.)

Dennie spewed praise, he didn’t even know what all he said as he gripped Wade’s hair like a handle and battered Wade’s throat in the way Wade liked best, rivulets of warm water spilling down both their bodies and pooling beneath them. All Dennie really knew was that he felt an overwhelming, uncontrollable combination of lust and tenderness and passion for this boy. For _his_ boy. And that he never wanted to let Wade go.

* * *

Wade stared blankly at the ceiling for a long time that night, well after Dennie passed out and began to snore.

Rule #3 weighed heavily on his mind as he picked apart what Dennie had said during the blowjob. Wade had tried, at first, to pass off Dennie’s words as something said in passion. ‘Heat of the moment.’ People said things they didn’t mean during sex all the time. So surely Dennie didn’t mean anything by it. Surely Wade could just let the ugly comment go.

But no. Wade knew Dennie well enough by now to know that Dennie didn’t say things he didn’t mean. That even _thinking_ Dennie had said something he didn’t mean was a first-class ticket to Grand Central Spank. No. Dennie couldn’t have just been caught up in the heat of the moment.

Only one explanation made sense: Dennie really thought Wade was a slut.

Wade wrestled that thought into submission. No, that couldn’t be quite right. Dennie hadn’t said Wade was a regular slut. He’d said, _“You’re such a perfect cockslut, dearest.”_ A cockslut. That was different, right?

Well, _Dennie_ ’s cock had been in _Wade_ ’s mouth when he’d said Wade was a cockslut. So maybe Dennie just meant Wade was a slut for Dennie’s cock, and not a slut more generally. Christ, it was probably meant to be a nice thing—it was plainly something Dennie was happy about.

Wade took a deep breath as he evaluated that hypothesis. In the end, he had to conclude that, in context, it made some amount of sense that Dennie considered ‘cockslut’ to be some sort of term of endearment—Dennie liked to give him soppy nicknames, and even though he’d never called him a cockslut before, he was always coming up with something new. Sweetheart. Darling. Kid. Christ, during the match he’d called Wade his ‘little Nani’ as if that wasn’t super weird. (Wade had kind of liked that one, even if it was unconventional.) Now, analyzing Dennie’s use of the word ‘cockslut,’ Wade was forced to recognize that in the same breath, Dennie had also said that he was ‘perfect’ and Dennie’s ‘dearest.’ Not to mention, Dennie’s tone had been breathy, loving; the kind of tone Dennie took with him when he was really pleased. So being a ‘cockslut’ must be a good thing, something that made Dennie happy with him. Wade was able to carry the logic through: they’d made exclusivity vows early in their relationship—that meant Dennie wouldn’t be pleased if he thought Wade was a common slut, so being Dennie’s cockslut must be something different; something nice; not something he needed to worry over or complain about.

None of the logic forestalled a cold, lifeless void from opening up in his heart and sucking away all of the unfettered joy and excitement that Wade had been feeling just hours earlier, leeching that evening’s good feeling that had spurred him to spontaneously kneel for Dennie’s cock in the first place. _I’m a slut_. Wade tried to stop it. _Dennie said I’m a slut._ No, stop, Wade tried to command his errant stream of consciousness. _Dennie must have been thinking this all along._ Christ, brain, don’t you realize that you’re breaking Rule #3?? _I’m just a slut, so who cares?_

Wade dozed on and off a few hours, but by 5:00am he’d conceded defeat. He’d spent the entire night chewing. This had never happened; in the past, all seventy thousand odd times that Wade had broken Rule #3, all it took was that moment of understanding— _aw, fuck, how could I have thought he meant that?_—for Wade to recognize his mistake and internalize the true meaning of Dennie’s words. But something was preventing it this time. Wade had determined what Dennie had meant, and yet he couldn’t force his brain to believe it. Wade knew he’d get a paddling for this; dear Lord, Dennie might even use his belt, which he’d only done once before.

Recalling in savage detail the trouble he’d been in for withholding his Rule violations from Dennie before, at 5:26am Wade steeled himself and shook Dennie awake. “Hngh,” Dennie groaned.

“Dennie. I have to tell you something before I go to work.”

“Whazzit?”

For a terrible second, Wade considered just letting Dennie go back to sleep. He was ashamed of his failing. Dennie had been patiently and steadfastly training Wade how to follow his Rules; Wade could scarcely believe that even now, six months in, he was still making the same mistakes. And ones big enough to require waking Dennie up at the ass-crack of dawn.

But Wade was more easily able to push that intrusive thought aside. He believed Dennie now that breaking the Rules wouldn’t make Dennie hate him. Dennie would be pleased that Wade came to him for help. Dennie would make this better, and he’d be happy that Wade trusted him to do so.

“Dennie, I broke a Rule.”

Dennie’s eyes fluttered open, hazy from sleep and a little crusty around the edges. “When? Just now?”

“Overnight,” Wade admitted. “Now, still, I guess. I can’t… Dennie, I’m misinterpreting something you said, and I can’t stop. Please help me.”

That plea jerked Dennie into a sharper awareness. He sat up, rubbing his eyes for a second before setting his hand on Wade’s knee. “Thank you for waking me, dearest. I’m proud of you.”

It was hard for Wade to hear that kind of praise when he felt so thoroughly ashamed of himself. In the grayish early morning light of the bedroom, Wade tried to look away, but Dennie’s huge, rough hand on his cheek stopped him. “Please go start some coffee, sweetheart,” Dennie ordered, his mouth uplifting in a small grin. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

A few moments later Dennie came out to Wade’s kitchen, his face washed and sweatpants on, looking mildly more awake. He was holding a pair of thick socks—“for you, dearest.” Wade sat down to pull them on; he hadn’t even noticed that his bare feet were cold.

Wade got back up to pour them each a mug of coffee from the coffee pot, then slouched down into the seat across from Dennie at his small dining table. Neither of them liked cream or sugar, so Wade didn’t ask. He took a few small sips before setting his cup down and letting his hands fall listlessly into his lap.

Dennie didn’t rush Wade into talking. Though slightly groggy and still nursing his own coffee, Dennie appeared perfectly calm—completely unperturbed at having been roused at five in the morning to discuss Wade’s inadequacies. Dennie’s composure was what ultimately gave Wade the courage to speak. “Dennie. I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you sorry, hon?”

“I’m trying not to twist your words into something they’re not. I’m just having so much trouble.”

Dennie reached across the table, palm facing up; one glimpse of Dennie’s imperious gaze let Wade know exactly what the order was. He pulled one of his hands from his lap and rested it in Dennie’s, and Dennie’s warmth seeped into him, heating his body through and infusing him with Dennie’s calm. “Wade, I need a little more context here. What exactly did I say?”

Wade still found it difficult to get the words out: there was a niggling, giggly feeling like he was a naughty schoolboy about to say the ‘bad words’ out loud that mixed with a more general apprehension and nausea, everything blending together into a horrible brackish sensation that oozed like viscous slime in and around the void in his heart. But Dennie’s heat cut through it and made him brave. Wade took a deep breath. “‘You’re such a perfect cockslut, dearest.’”

“I… what?”

“‘You’re such a perfect cockslut, dearest,’” Wade repeated dutifully. “That’s what you said.”

“Oh dear Lord.”

Dennie didn’t sound _mad_ at Wade, per se, but he didn’t sound pleased either. “I know,” Wade responded despondently. “This shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s a textbook Rule #3 issue. I know you meant it like an endearment. My brain is just playing tricks on me, that’s why I’m misinterpreting it as something bad.”

“No, no, sweetheart, that’s not what I…” But Dennie pulled his hand away from Wade’s and covered his mouth; he didn’t seem to be able to continue speaking.

The void of dark, depressing things gaped wide in Wade’s chest; had he gotten this all backwards? Had he picked at the language and logic-ed his way to the explanation that ‘cockslut’ was a term of endearment because he was too much of a chickenshit to accept the truth?

That in reality, Dennie just thought he was a slut?

“I guess I didn’t actually misinterpret anything then,” Wade choked out, trying to calm his racing heart. God, how he wanted to be defiant. To scream at Dennie, ‘I’m not a slut! Don’t call me that!’ But it wasn’t Wade’s place to tell Dennie what he was allowed to say or think about Wade. “I’m… I’m sorry for being difficult. I understand why you think I’m... that,” Wade forced himself to add. He couldn’t be bratty and unreasonable about this. Christ, Dennie had watched and advised while Wade bottomed his way through the entirety of Frau Lick’s cadre of Doms, multiple times through. Of course Dennie thought he was a slut.

(And if Wade had been with Dennie for six months thinking Dennie didn’t believe that about him, maybe he shouldn’t have been so presumptuous.)

“No! Wade. No. I don’t think you’re a slut. You’re _not_ a slut.”

Wade was starting to feel like a wooden man on a foosball table, being jerked back and forth and twirled upside down all at once. So it wasn’t an endearment, but Dennie didn’t mean it for real, either? There weren’t a whole lot of other ways to interpret what Dennie had said. “But… but you said it,” Wade pointed out hesitantly. Helplessly. “And you always mean what you say.”

“It was an accident,” Dennie said in a small, un-Dennie-like voice. “I didn’t even realize I said it at the time. I must have blurted it out in the heat of the moment.”

Wade let that percolate. Dennie’s explanation caused a strange, foreign feeling to well up: something vicious and passionate and hot. It took a moment for Wade to attach a name to the unfamiliar emotion: _anger_.

“What the hell do you mean, you just blurted it out?”

“Wade—”

It rushed over him, too strong to restrain, like the feeling when he took his hands off the brakes of his bicycle to speed the downward slopes. He’d never yelled at a romantic partner before; he’d certainly never considered yelling at a _Dom._ “I’ve been _ordered_ to take everything you say at face value! I get _belted_ when I don’t! And now you’re telling me that you can just ‘blurt out’ awful things that you don’t mean, and that I have to somehow sort out what’s what and, and, figure out if you mean it or not? Well that’s not fair!”

Dennie got up from his chair and walked around the table, making Wade flinch back a bit. But Dennie didn’t slap him, or scold him, or tell him he needed to calm down and grow up. He dropped to his knees in front of Wade, uncaring about the tiled floor, and rested his hands across Wade’s thighs. “I know. You followed my Rules perfectly, dearest. I’m the one who made a mistake. I should never have called you that. I broke your trust.”

Dennie’s lack of anger and his unforgiving acceptance of Wade’s criticism disarmed Wade’s fury in an instant. What was he thinking? Wade was the one with neuroses; people called their partners sluts in bed all the time without any issues whatsoever. Why had Wade made such a big deal out of this in the first place? Why was he making his Dom, the sweetest, kindest man in the world, feel bad over something so small? “N-no,” Wade tried to rejoin, feeling horribly guilty for his outburst. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I should have just let it go. It didn’t matter. I should have had a thicker skin about the whole thing.”

Something so unexpected happened at that point that Wade was starting to wonder if this was all some grand hallucination: tears welled up in Dennie’s eyes. “Oh, dearest. No. Don’t you dare try to take the blame for my shortcomings. I never should have used derogatory language against you without having a conversation with you about it beforehand. You’re right: that was unfair to you and caused you undue distress and pain. I’ve been hammering for six months that you should believe what I tell you without questioning it—I don’t get to do that and then turn around and say horrendous, untrue things that make you feel sad or unloved. I feel, quite frankly, like a pretty shitty Dom right now, because in the matter of a split second I shattered the trust that you and I have been working so diligently to build up together.”

That sounded too ominous for Wade to bear. He threaded his fingers through Dennie’s hair and pulled his face against his stomach. A little desperately. “It’s not… it’s not so dire… I still trust you,” Wade said shakily, hoping he could convince Dennie he didn’t need to feel bad and that they could both just forget about the whole situation.

But Dennie seemed to see right through that. He stood up, reversing their positions and the dynamic, lacing his fingers through Wade’s curls and pulling his face against Dennie’s torso. “You’ve got such a good heart, dearest,” Dennie muttered. His tension and unhappiness were palpable from his grip. “I’m a lucky man. Far luckier than I deserve right now. But do you understand, dear, that you’re allowed to be mad at me? That it’s okay for you to feel hurt by how I treated you?”

Wade wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “I don’t want to fight,” he responded hesitantly. “I don’t want to break up over something that isn’t that big of a deal.”

“We’re not going to break up.” Dennie’s voice, which had been shaky for most of this conversation, was firm on that point. That consoled Wade, at least. “We’re not going to fight, either. But you’re wrong. This is a big deal. I said something that devastated you, and we’d never have been in this position if I had been more responsible.”

“You didn’t mean it,” Wade weakly tried to counter.

“Does that matter? Isn’t it my responsibility not to say things I don’t mean, so that you can follow my Rules and not get confused or anxious or scared? This all could have been a non-issue if I had thought to sit down with you and discuss your hard limits in a formalized fashion. It never occurred to me I might inadvertently breach one, so I never bothered to find out what they were. That’s on me.”

“It’s not—Dennie! It’s not like being called that is a hard limit for me or something!”

“Isn’t it?” Dennie reached down, aligning Wade’s chin up against the plane of his chest. Compelling eye contact. It was an awkward bend that forced a crick in Wade’s neck; it made him feel vulnerable. “Be honest now. Do you want me to call you a slut again?”

A few solitary tears bubbled from the corners of Wade’s eyes and descended into his hair, over Dennie’s hands. He wanted to say no; the very thought crushed him. Even if it was all in play, even if Dennie just blurted it out in the heat of the moment, it hurt Wade that Dennie called him a slut. But it would be so selfish to say so. So instead he whispered, “I can take it. People say things to their partners during sex all the time that—”

“Do you really think I give a fuck about what those people say and do? Because I don’t. You’re my priority. Tell me the truth—not what you can take, not what you think I want to hear. Tell me what you _want._ ”

Dennie’s mandate slammed into him, solid as a freight train, and exhorted something closer to sobbing. “I don’t want you to call me a slut again,” Wade wept, the truth spilling out unimpeded. “I hate it. It makes me feel worthless and empty when people call me that. Especially you.”

“I understand.” Dennie rearranged Wade’s head into a more comfortable position against his chest, enclosing him in with a strong hand over the back of his head. It was a position Wade associated with safety and assurance, and it incited more tears. “I promise you I’ll never do it again, my dearest.”

That… seemed too easy. “Is that it?” Wade asked tentatively. He’d never told a Dom not to do something before; he’d figured there’d be a bigger dog and pony show about it.

“That’s it,” Dennie affirmed. “You’ve made one of your hard limits clear. Now it’s my duty to ensure I never breach that limit again, not even by accident.”

“I’ve never had a hard limit before,” Wade admitted.

Dennie wrenched his face up again—he looked distraught. “You’re kidding. Never? You’ve never once set a hard limit with any of your Doms?”

Wade shrugged, feeling a little uncomfortable at Dennie’s scrutiny. “I didn’t know I had any,” Wade tried to justify. “And no one ever did anything too awful to me.”

Dennie muttered some dark things under his breath (‘Terry’ and ‘Crenshaw’ and ‘going to wring those fuckers’ and other such grumbly things). Once he seemed composed again, he announced, in his normal voice, “Well, sweetheart, even if you don’t think so, you do have limits. Everyone has limits. Now I don’t doubt that you’re scared to have them, or at least scared to tell me about them, because you don’t want to have conflict with me over them. You said that to me earlier—that you were ready to forgive me for calling you a truly disgusting name because you didn’t want to start a ‘fight.’ But shit, Wade. I don’t want peace at the expense of you feeling happy and secure in our relationship. And the last thing I want is to hurt you. I want to know about your limits in advance so that I can avoid hurting you; and if, God forbid, I ever hurt you again, I need to know, immediately, so I can do what’s necessary to make it better. To make you feel better.”

Wade was silent for a while, and Dennie didn’t add anything else either. He just loosely stroked his fingers across Wade’s scalp; the quiet, easy affection calmed him. “This is why it never worked out with other Doms,” Wade finally admitted in a whisper. “Because I’m not good at setting my own boundaries. So I just did whatever they wanted, and they didn’t like that, and I didn’t either. But I really don’t know what my limits are. It’s like a white static overcomes my brain when I try to think about it.” _All I can think about is doing whatever is necessary to please my partner, no matter the cost._

“We’ve already come up with one limit,” Dennie reminded gently. “And I’ll help you figure out the rest. I won’t let you fail, and I’ll keep you safe from now on. Can you trust me, my dear, to be pleased with you if you’re honest with me about your feelings and your boundaries?”

Maybe it would have been hard to accept from someone else, but Wade still knew, even after everything that had happened tonight, that if Dennie said something it must be true. So Wade nodded. “I trust you, sir. I mean it.”

* * *

Wade came to Frau Lick as soon as he was off work Monday evening. He blushed and picked up the placard from his barstool, setting it carefully on the bar within his eyesight. Dennie felt like a total asshole because, even after he’d displayed such Grade-A shitty behavior to Wade, the boy was still tickled by the visible reminder that he was ‘ _Dennie’s Wade_.’

Dennie had a club soda and a plate of tots and nachos ready for him. “Eat up, sweetheart,” Dennie ordered as he planted a little kiss on the top of Wade’s head. Wade looked tired enough to keel over in his seat. Dennie had wanted Wade to take the day off to get a little sleep, but Wade had protested that the firm was about to file some big thing, which meant it wasn’t really in the cards for Wade to take an ‘unnecessary’ sick day. Just one more reason Dennie was a big pile of shit.

Dennie pulled himself together. He felt horrible for what he’d done—for how irresponsible he’d been with Wade’s emotional well-being. (For how Wade had thought he needed to pretend Dennie hadn’t hurt him so that he could avoid risking a possible _break-up._ Jesus F’in Christ.) But Dennie couldn’t wallow in his guilt. That wouldn’t help Wade feel more secure, and it certainly wouldn’t help re-forge the painstakingly-gained bonds of trust that Dennie had nearly obliterated through his thoughtlessness.

Dennie pulled out two pieces of paper from under the bar and pushed them over. On top was a new copy of the Rules. “Version 3,” Dennie said hoarsely as Wade skimmed the new Rules #8a and #8b.

“I don’t… I don’t understand… what’s my Limits document?”

“Look underneath.”

Wade pulled out the second sheet of paper. It was a simple five-column grid with the following headers: Limit; Dislike but appropriate for discipline; Ambivalent; Don’t know but willing to try; and Like/Love. All the columns were blank, except, in the Limit column, Dennie had himself written, as an example: ‘Being called a slut—hard limit.’

“We’re going to go through some lists that I found online today,” Dennie explained, “and we’re going to categorize what you like and what you don’t. If we run out of space on this sheet, I’ve got some more paper. Then what you’re going to do is turn this document into a Google Document and share it with me. It’ll be viewing privileges only—for _me_. You’ll be in charge of keeping it up to date and letting me know if things change, and you’ll be in big trouble if I find out you’ve neglected it.”

At Wade’s somewhat trepidatious look, Dennie softened his tone to something less autocratic. “I’m not trying to scare you, darling. I’m being a little curt because I’m ashamed that I haven’t sat down with you and done this before. Our relationship isn’t really a traditional BDSM relationship given that we pretty much only do discipline, but that’s no excuse. Even if we’re never going to do 95% of these things, I still need to know where your boundaries are to keep you safe. Not only that, I need _you_ to know where your boundaries are so you can keep yourself safe.”

“I understand, sir,” Wade said, chewing thoughtfully on a tater tot.

Dennie took a quick look around the bar—it was Monday at 6pm at a kink bar, so no one was here—and then passed a pen across to Wade. “Let’s start with the limit we discovered today. I’d like to know more about where this particular limit stems from.” Wade grimaced, and it was so adorable Dennie almost laughed, but he held himself back. “I know it’s hard to talk about these things,” Dennie soothed. “I’m not expecting you to perfectly articulate with medical and psychological accuracy why you feel the way you feel about these things. Just say whatever comes to mind.”

Wade tapped the pen against his lip. “Um. Okay. The thing with like… that bad word… it’s just that pretty much everyone thinks that about me. Here, of course, it’s like the core of my reputation since I’ve gone through so many Doms. But even before I started coming here, that’s what people thought about me. And said to me. Even though I really don’t think I’m… that.”

“Who called you that, darling?” Though Dennie already had a good guess. He just wanted to see if Wade would be willing to be more open with him about his past.

“I guess I’ve mentioned him a couple times. Mr. Crenshaw. I started dating him when I was still in high school, so it’s not like he was wrong to call me a slut.”

“Hey.” Dennie rolled up a blank piece of paper and bopped Wade on the nose, eliciting a little squeak. “You aren’t—and weren’t ever—a slut. And since I don’t call you a slut, I’m engaging the Dom’s prerogative and ordering you not to either.”

The corner of Wade’s mouth tipped up just a bit. “Alright, sir. I’ll obey you. Well, that’s really all there is to say about it. I just don’t like the way it makes me feel. So I guess… I guess that means it’s a hard limit, since I’d prefer you didn’t say it.”

Dennie almost pushed Wade further; to open up more about Mr. Crenshaw and the feelings his verbal abuse had evoked. Dennie desperately wanted to understand just what sort of man had preyed on Wade while he was still in _high school_. But he’d learned by now that Wade was more comfortable surrendering information on his own terms; he’d reveal his truths to Dennie when he was good and ready, and if Dennie pushed too hard, it might make Wade shut down. “Thank you for telling me, dear heart. But I want to make clear that it’s not just a preference. It’s a limit. That’s inviolate and I must respect it, no matter what.”

Wade shrugged. That might be as good as it got tonight, though, so Dennie let it go. “What about other words?” Dennie continued. “I am going to list a few examples. I want you to know I would never call you these words for real, so we’re talking about using words like these in play.” Dennie listed off a couple of derogatory terms—bitch, cunt, whore, faggot, etc—to gauge Wade’s reaction. Nope. Wade did not like those words at all.

“I think… I think sir, I don’t really want to be called those things for any reason,” Wade mumbled into his soda.

“Very good. Thank you for your honesty. Please write that down in the Limits column.”

When Wade finished, he looked back up at Dennie with anticipation and earnestness, which tugged Dennie’s heartstrings. “Now I’m going to talk through what you and I normally do, so we can gauge where the bread and butter things in our relationship fit. I have that ‘dislike’ category since I think that’s where most forms of impact play will fit for you. You’ve told me you don’t like to do them for play, but that you’re willing to accept them for discipline, so they’re not a traditional limit. I would never do anything in that category to you for any other purpose than punishment, though. And if I say something that you dislike but you don’t want me to use for discipline, that means it’s a limit, so you put it in the Limits category. Got it?

“Got it.”

“Alright: spanking?”

Wade wrote it in the Dislike column.

“Paddling?”

Wade wrote that down too. Wade embellished that one a bit; he wrote ‘paddling,’ then added ‘Dennie’s metal paddle—hard dislike’ as its own separate line item before giving Dennie a shy, cheeky little grin.

“Alright, you little brat. I concede that the metal paddle is in a league of its own. Belting?”

Wade hesitated over that one. “Um.”

Dennie had a brief moment of near-panic as he wondered if Wade was about to tell him that belting actually was a hard limit that Dennie had pressured him to cross that one time they’d done it.

“Sir, the thing is, I didn’t mind how you did it. But… I think the buckle is a hard limit for me. If that’s okay, I mean.”

Oh. “Wade. Honey. Let me remind you that you are now under a standing Rule to be honest with me about what you want and don’t want. So not only is it okay to tell me you don’t want me to hit you with the belt buckle; it’s actually mandatory.”

Wade hurriedly nodded and penned ‘belt—strap only’ in the Discipline category, and then wrote ‘belt buckle—hard limit’ into the Limits column.

“Good boy.”

Whoops. That had slipped out by accident. Dennie did call Wade ‘boy’ on occasion, but he’d been trying to avoid anything that specifically harkened to the Daddy/boy dynamic, given that Wade was still not in the position to admit that that was the type of relationship that he and Dennie had. Dennie kicked himself for again lacking control over his verbal impulses, twice in as many days!

But Wade didn’t protest it. He just blushed and looked at Dennie expectantly, waiting for him to read the next item on the list. Dennie shook the cobwebs from his head and moved on. “Alright, I’m going to list a few forms of impact play that we haven’t done before, so don’t be shy to mark some of these as Limits.”

Wade put face-slapping straight into the Limits column, along with slapping to any other part of his body that wasn’t his butt; and he put crops, canes, floggers, and hairbrushes into the Discipline column. He hesitated over whips.

“What’s wrong, little one?”

Wade gave Dennie a nauseated sort of look. “Well, uh. I mean, I’ve been safely hit with them before, and they’re not that bad. It’s just… they require, sort of,” Wade’s voice petered out into a whisper, “expertise.”

“And you’re not comfortable having me whip you if I don’t have that specialized training?” Dennie clarified.

Wade nodded, looking chagrined at having questioned Dennie’s competence.

“Wade, if you don’t want me to do something to you for whatever reason, or no reason at all, then just put it in the Limits category. It doesn’t offend me.”

But Wade still dithered. “The thing is, sir, if you ever decided to get trained on it, I wouldn’t mind. I mean, I know it’s sort of over-the-top to use a whip for regular discipline stuff. And it’s not like I _want_ you whip me. Or like I’m asking you to get the training, which would be really time-consuming. And good whips are pretty expensive—”

Wade seemed unable to control his babbling, so Dennie reached across the bar and covered his hand to halt the flood. “It sounds like to me like it’s a limit then, but a soft one, hm? You can put it in the Limits column and just notate next to it that you might decide to move it to the Discipline column if and when I ever get trained on using a whip safely. You needn’t justify your reasoning to me.”

“It’s that simple?”

The innocent question sort of broke Dennie’s heart. “Yes, my dearest. It’s that simple.” Once Wade had obediently put whipping into the Limits column, Dennie moved on to, “Hair pulling?”

And that produced a deep, crimson blush. Wade’s hand shakily shifted to the Like/Love column, and he wrote down, ‘hair pulling—Love.’

“Oh, you definitely are my honest boy,” Dennie said, punctuating that with a playful tug of Wade’s bouncy curls. “How about following orders?” Dennie asked on impulse, even though he hadn’t planned on it, because he wanted to see if he could deepen that blush.

Like/Love: ‘following orders—Love.’ And yes, Wade’s blush did indeed go even darker.

The rest of the discussion was far more academic. Wade felt ‘ambivalent’ about pretty much every fetish: ropes, blindfolds, sexual and domestic servitude, nipple play, wax, fire, electricity, orgasm control, exhibitionism, humiliation, breath play. He’d even categorized watersports and scat as two things he was ‘ambivalent’ about. He only added two more things to the Like/Love category: ‘praise—Like;’ ‘rough sex—Love.’ He added nothing whatsoever to the ‘Don't Know’ column. (He’d listed pet play as a limit, and age play as a _hard_ limit. Those two choices seemed curious outliers, so Dennie filed it away to see if he could unravel the mystery later.) From this assortment of interests, a clearer picture of Wade was painted: he just wasn’t very kinky. He was submissive, to be sure, and he didn’t particularly mind doing anything his partner wanted to do, but he’d never really _wanted_ the accoutrements of a BDSM lifestyle. Wade was a boy—all he wanted was to be given Rules and to be disciplined for breaking them, along with a little hair pulling on the side and a full serving of love and support from his Daddy.

“You’ve done a very good job with this list,” Dennie praised him once they finished. “I know how hard this was for you. I want you to go home now and go straight to bed. You’re wiped. You can format this into a Google Doc tomorrow. And don’t forget, this isn’t set in stone. You can add anything new you think of, and any of these can change at any time, so long as you make sure to tell me when you make changes.”

“Yes, Da-sir.”

Dennie was shocked at the near slip-up, but he kept his surprise under wraps so as not to draw attention to it and freak Wade out. Dennie had thought that it might take weeks, if not months, for him and Wade to get back on track to the same level of trust that they’d enjoyed before Dennie had been a total asshole. But on the contrary, it seemed that somehow—despite the fact that Dennie didn’t deserve it at all—he and his boy had become closer than ever.

* * *

Dennie’s Rules for Wade v3   
  


  1. Always obey Dennie’s Rules and orders.
  2. Never obey rules or orders that Dennie didn’t give you.* 
    * *For purposes of this Rule, you may obey orders from your work supervisors as well as orders from law enforcement and emergency personnel.
  3. Never assume Dennie means something different than what Dennie said.
  4. Never lie to Dennie. (Sneakiness counts.) You may, however, state that you do not wish to talk about something.
  5. Never call Dennie “Mr. Henderson” out loud, even if you can’t always manage it in your head.
  6. Always inform Dennie by phone or in person as soon as possible* if you break a Rule and he doesn’t know about it. 
    * *“As soon as possible” means as soon as you are safe and physically able to talk to Dennie or call him. You need not tell Dennie about Rules violations in front of others. You need not tell Dennie you broke a Rule until you realize you broke it.
  7. _Wade doesn’t make the Rules!_ If you aren’t sure how to apply one of Dennie’s Rules or obey one of Dennie’s orders, always ask Dennie to clarify what he wants before you take further action.
  8. Wade’s Limits
    * Rule #8a: You are in charge of your Limits document. You may modify it at any time, and you must always keep it truthful and up-to-date. If you make a modification, notify Dennie immediately. (A text message is sufficient.)
    * Rule #8b: Always tell Dennie immediately if he breaches one of your limits, or if he makes you feel uncomfortable, sad, or angry, or if he hurts you in any other way.



**Author's Note:**

> In case it wasn't abundantly obvious... this is the Group Stage match that they watched at Frau Lick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_FIFA_World_Cup_Group_G#United_States_vs_Portugal It really did take place on a Sunday in the early evening, and Portugal did not end up making it out of the Group Stage, lol.


End file.
